The Laws of Attraction Read Online Free PDF

type, either. The one serious relationship in her life had been with a man every bit as driven to succeed as she was. He’d worn all the right clothes, gone to all the right places, been seen with all the right people.
    But Drew Wellington turned out to have this nasty habit of lying to her, hiding things from her such as the supposedly unimportant detail that he had a high-school sweetheart back home whom he saw every chance he got. He’d also failed to mention that his old flame was pregnant with his child.
    Not that he intended to marry her. She wasn’t suitable, he’d tried to explain to Ashley when she’d discovered his tawdry little secret. Ashley was the woman he wanted to marry.
    She wasn’t sure which part of that had made her sickest, the lying or the snobbery, but the betrayal had all come flooding back to her in that courtroom a week ago when she’d realized that her ex and Tiny shared a common lack of familiarity with the truth. What was it about her that made people think they didn’t have to be honest with her? Did they think she was too stupid to discover the lies, or that she wouldn’t care if she did?
    Either way, she definitely hadn’t done so well with her one foray into love of the proper kind. Still, that didn’t mean she was ready to start compromising her ideals for a man utterly lacking in style and ambition, even if that did make her into the very kind of snob she claimed to despise.
    Which was unfortunate, she concluded when Melanie and Mike arrived not five minutes later with Josh Madison in tow. Her heart promptly began the kind ofenthusiastic staccato rhythm she hadn’t felt in years. Josh had cleaned up nicely. His hair was damp and spiked with gel, his cheeks were smooth and he’d changed into chinos and an expensive knit shirt with a designer logo emblazoned discreetly on the pocket. He was still wearing the disreputable-looking boat shoes, though, and no socks.
    “Look who we found,” Melanie announced cheerfully. “We ran into Josh on our way over and invited him to tag along. He’s our neighbor. You guys must remember the Madison house. And Josh remembers Grandma Lindsey. Hope you don’t mind, Maggie, but we didn’t want to leave him on his own. I know you always cook enough for a mob.”
    Ashley frowned at Maggie, who was struggling unsuccessfully to contain a chuckle.
    “I think it’s great,” Maggie enthused. “I just hope you didn’t run into Josh the same way Ashley did earlier. I doubt his car could take another encounter like that.”
    Melanie’s eyes widened as she turned from Josh to Ashley and back again. “Ashley is the person who hit you?”
    Ashley turned her scowl on Josh. “Couldn’t wait to spread the word, I see.”
    “Actually, I didn’t volunteer anything. Mike noticed the dent and asked about it,” he said. “Would you have wanted me to lie to him?”
    She sighed at that. “Of course not.”
    He regarded her speculatively. “I hope it’s not going to make you uncomfortable having to sit across a dinner table from me?”
    Ashley frowned. He seemed to be relishing theprospect of causing her a little discomfort. “Absolutely not,” she lied.
    Josh grinned. “You can always think of it as that penance you were so anxious to exact from yourself earlier,” he suggested. “Though don’t think tonight will get you off the hook on that other dinner you promised me. I’m counting on that.”
    Maggie and Melanie stared at them, clearly fascinated by the exchange. They were going to make way too much of this, Ashley could tell. She needed to defuse their speculation as quickly as possible.
    “Whatever,” she said with a very deliberate shrug of indifference. “I can stand it if you can. I’m used to uncomfortable situations.”
    “She’s used to staring down prosecutors,” Melanie explained. “She’s very good at it.”
    Josh’s grin spread. “A lawyer. I should have guessed. It explains a lot.”
    Normally she would have